4 Women sentenced for using Freedom of the Seas to smuggle cocaine

Oct 21, 2016

Four Washington D.C. women were sentenced for plotting to smuggle more than six kilos of cocaine into the United States on a cruise ship. In May this year, Lakisha Abney together with three friends set sail on Royal Caribbean cruise ship Freedom of the Seas, on a week-long Western Caribbean voyage. When they arrived in Jamaica all four met a man who gave them bras and girdles with vacuum-sealed packages containing cocaine. They boarded the ship together with the drugs undetected, and after couple of days they arrive back in Port Canaveral.

U.S. Immigration and Customs officers detected suspicious behavior by one of the woman wearing a loose-fitting muumuu, and decided to pat her down. After finding the drugs the woman told the officers she was traveling together with three other friends. The officers found rest of the party very easy, because all were wearing loose-fitting muumuus. Lakisha Abney and her co-conspirators, Shenique Milbourne,Shawnta Aiken, and Ciera Bryant were arrested.

According to the initial report the woman said that they were offered free cruise and $700 for spending by a man whom one of the woman knew. There of the woman pleaded guilty, Milbourne was sentenced to two years and six months in federal prison, Bryant was got one year and ten months, and Aiken two years. Lakisha Abney was sentenced to eight years in prison.

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